Search the repository

A+ | A- | | SLO | ENG

Abstract: Soil is one of the most species-rich habitats and plays a crucial role in the functioning of terrestrial ecosystems. It is acknowledged that soils and their biota deliver many ecosystem services. However, up to now, cultural ecosystem services (CES) provided by soil biodiversity remained virtually unknown. Here we present a multilingual and multisubject literature review on cultural benefits provided by belowground biota in European forests. We found 226 papers mentioning impact of soil biota on the cultural aspects of human life. According to the reviewed literature, soil organisms contribute to all CES. Impact on CES, as reflected in literature, was highest for fungi and lowest for microorganisms and mesofauna. Cultural benefits provided by soil biota clearly prevailed in the total of the reviewed references, but there were also negative effects mentioned in six CES. The same organism groups or even individual species may have negative impacts within one CES and at the same time act as an ecosystem service provider for another CES. The CES were found to be supported at several levels of ecosystem service provision: from single species to two or more functional/taxonomical groups and in some cases morphological diversity acted as a surrogate for species diversity. Impact of soil biota on CES may be both direct % by providing the benefits (or dis-benefits) and indirect through the use of the products or services obtained from these benefits. The CES from soil biota interacted among themselves and with other ES, but more than often, they did not create bundles, because there exist temporal fluctuations in value of CES and a time lag between direct and indirect benefits. Strong regionality was noted for most of CES underpinned by soil biota: the same organism group or species may have strong impact on CES (positive, negative or both) in some regions while no, minor or opposite effects in others. Contrarily to the CES based on landscapes, in the CES provided by soil biota distance between the ecosystem and its CES benefiting area is shorter (CES based on landscapes are used less by local people and more by visitors, meanwhile CES based on species or organism groups are used mainly by local people). Our review revealed the existence of a considerable amount of spatially fragmented and semantically rich information highlighting cultural values provided by forest soil biota in Europe.
Keywords: soil biota, forests, soil ecosystem services, Europe
Published in DiRROS: 20.02.2020; Views: 1794; Downloads: 1020
Full text (329,19 KB)
This document has many files! More...

Abstract: Species richness is a key variable in measuring diversity of ecological communities. It is crucial to get reliable estimates for the number of plant species in space (mapping) and % even more important in the context of monitoring % over time. Therefore, knowledge on error rates related to recordings of species numbers should be considered in such inventories. The performance of observers in four field tests to capture species numbers carried out in forest ecosystems in central and southern Europe were compared. Observer-related species accumulation (rarefaction) curves and derived efficiency curves were analysed, resulting in mean error rates of 29.7% and 39.4% over series of plots sized 4m2 and 100m2 respectively. As a new approach individual rarefaction and efficiency curves reveal site-specific and spatially differentiated capabilities of observers to register plant species. Since expertise and individual searching strategies are difficult to parametrise, reasons for variation in error rates remain largely unknown. However, statistical modelling with site- and scale-specific mean error rates gave an overview on important influential factors like location, scale, spatial integration, and their interactions. Our results underline the importance to incorporate specific training and inter-comparison measures in monitoring programs and critical perception of results on temporal changes of species richness.
Keywords: species richness, observer error, overlooking rate, misidentification rate, singleton species, ICP Forests
Published in DiRROS: 20.02.2020; Views: 1614; Downloads: 634
Link to full text

Abstract: At the 1000km geographical distance in Dinaric montane forests of silver fir (Abies alba Mill.) and European beech (Fagus sylvatica L.), the tree response from the north-western sites towards southern, warmer and dryer sites was performed during three consecutive growing seasons (2011, 2012 and 2013). On eleven permanent plots, positioned in uneven-aged beech and fir forests above 800m along the geographical gradient, the physiological and morphological response to light intensity were measured in predefined light categories based on the analysis of hemispherical photos. Radial growth was analysed on all plots and compared to precipitation, temperature and two drought indexes. Analysis showed a decrease in the cumulative precipitation and no change in temperature between plots. Beech was most efficient in the open area light conditions, while fir proved most efficient under shelter. Physiological response for beech increased towards SE and reached its maximal values in the middle of transect, while fir%s response decreased from the NW towards SE. Tendency to plagiotropic growth decreased from NW to SE in both species. Growth response to climatic parameters is weak, stronger in fir than in beech and decreasing towards SE.
Keywords: beech, uneven aged forests, silviculture, latitudinal gradient, response, silver fir
Published in DiRROS: 13.11.2019; Views: 2080; Downloads: 1375
Full text (2,35 MB)
This document has many files! More...

Abstract: In recent decades, the conservation of biodiversity has become one of the main areas under consideration in managing forests in an ecologically sustainable way. Forest management practices are primary drivers of diversity and may enhance or decrease forest biodiversity, according to the measures applied (thinning options). We have focused on three beech (Fagus sylvatica L.) forests across a latitudinal gradient in Italy, characterised by different structures resulting from dissimilar management. We tested the short-term effects of differently-based silvicultural intervention vs. stands where no silvicultural practices were applied on biodiversity indicators and related proxies: deadwood amounts, microhabitat density, floristic richness and life form abundance. In each study area, the occurrence of the above indicators and proxies was evaluated before and after the implementation of crop tree thinning (CTT) and thinning from below (LT) methods, comparing them with control areas where no interventions were performed. After two years, the management options resulted in different responses of the investigated parameters. The CTT increased deadwood amounts in comparison with the LT ones, while stumps increased significantly after the LT thinning. Microhabitats increased significantly where intervention was not undertaken. On the contrary, they remained unaltered after the LT treatments. CTT thinning created favourable conditions for the development of microhabitats and their proliferation in the long term. Two years after the application of the CTT thinning treatment, all forest stands demonstrated a significant increase in their floristic richness and herb layer cover. Significant differences were also found in both the frequency and cover of life forms in relation to silvicultural treatment. These findings provide a better understanding of short-term effects of silvicultural treatment useful for maintaining biodiversity in mountain beech forests.
Keywords: deadwood, microhabitats, understory vegetation, mountain forests, sustainable forest management, Italian forests
Published in DiRROS: 04.10.2018; Views: 2667; Downloads: 1743
Full text (835,42 KB)
This document has many files! More...

Keywords: forests, population genetics, molecular databases
Published in DiRROS: 12.07.2017; Views: 2782; Downloads: 818
Full text (144,07 KB)
This document has many files! More...